GP says selfish patients are lying about their coronavirus symptoms to get face-to-face appointments

Thomas Burrows

23 Mar 2020, 15:14

Updated: 23 Mar 2020, 16:44

Thomas Burrows

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A GP has told how selfish patients are lying about their "coronavirus" symptoms in order to get face-to-face appointments.

NHS GP Zoe Norris, who works in Yorkshire, described the "worrying trend" as "so unhelpful".

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GP Zoe Norris described how people were lying about their symptoms so they could see a doctor face-to-face

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Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Ms Norris described how patients were faking their symptoms in order to see a doctor face-to-face.

She said: "A worrying trend we're seeing is people lying in order to get a face-to-face assessment and that unnecessarily exposes both the treating doctors and nurses, as well as other patients who may well be at risk.

"Patients are saying 'we don't think it's Covid, it's just a cold it's just the flu, it's definitely not the coronavirus but it may well be'.

"Then they answer questions in a way that makes us think they may be higher risk.

"We say we may need to assess them for admission and that obviously involves face-to-face contact which we're really trying to avoid unless it's absolutely essential.

"And then when patients do arrive and are challenged actually they've lied about their symptoms to be seen. That really is so unhelpful."

She added: "I would love to see a strengthening of the message from the government. I think we do need to ramp things up."

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